


on the edges of such things

by piggy09



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-25 23:08:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20033872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: He would kill her. If she asked him to he would kill her and, probably, he would like it – which is why he can’t tell her about any of the dreams. Where she dies. It feels good. All the dreams where she dies and it feels good.





	on the edges of such things

**Author's Note:**

> [warning: various distorted & intrusive thoughts, suicidal ideation, murder]
> 
> Spoilers for Episode 71.

He can’t tell Nott. Veth. NottVeth, not Veth, he can’t tell her about the dreams. The raw yearning in her eyes on the beach in the sand with the waves and the water and the dreams, the way her hands burn up and her eyes are looking at him with reproach and guilt _I knew you were like this your people did this you did this and this is all you are weapon monster_ how can you. How can he. Tell her, how can he tell her, how can he tell her.

Three in the morning at the Lavish Chateau and Caleb is awake – not from The Dreams but from his dreams – out on the balcony, pacing forwards two steps and then turning around to pace two more and then turning and turning and turning and VethNott asleep with her husband and son her. Real husband and son her real family _I love you_ she said but she also said _I needed you so I kept you and I used you _and she said _I love you _and the look in her eyes: the look in her eyes. The sadsavage look in her eyes. He would kill her. If she asked him to he would kill her and, probably, he would like it – which is why he can’t tell her about any of the dreams. Where she dies. It feels good. All the dreams where she dies and it feels good.

Caleb claws for handfuls of his hair and pulls – hurts – doesn’t feel better, something inside him savage and howling and burning for it: to burn down the Lavish Chateau and burn Nott especially, _you asked for this_. To tell her that she asked for this. She wanted this and it was a stupid thing to want and also, terrible. Terrible. Back and forth and back and forth across the balcony. One snap from his fingers would, _light them up_,

_pretty._

_light them up pretty light them up pretty light them up pretty light them up pretty light them up pretty light them up pretty light them up pretty light them up pretty light them up pretty light them up pretty light them up pretty light them up pretty light them up pretty light them up pretty _he’s off the balcony now. Jester’s mother _light them up light them up _gave him his own room, which was lovely of her – and kind _pretty _– he’s out the door (quiet) down the hallway (quiet) (light them up) and down the stairs nod to the guard at the door _pretty, light them_ and down the hallway and out the door of the Lavish Chateau and in the street, now, now he’s running now, _light them up light them up light them up light them up light them up light them up light them up light them up _he’s running. Still within 150 feet of the Lavish Chateau which is of course the range needed for a _pretty, light up them pretty, _Fireball. The range of Wall of Fire which is 120 feet. His ribs _light up_, burn. His ribs burn, he gasps for breath, Beau could keep running, Beau could run for miles, if the Lavish Chateau burned Beau would be the first one out but she would turn around and go back for the rest of them and that is what would be. Beau would go back for them and she would burn, _pretty_, she would burn they would all burn _pretty up pretty light up them them up pretty_.

That’s what would kill her. That she would go back for them. Coughing in the smoke. Her sour heart in her chest hurting and hurting with blind confusion. _how could he _and _why would he _and _I knew it, I knew what he was I knew it, this is all you are weapon monster _they would all know and then they would die he can’t do it. Just can’t do it can’t do it.

Through Nicodranas, the streets: all the way through all of the streets. Snap snap Dancing Lights and he stops being blind, still stubs his toes on the cobblestones, he’s wheezing for breath (too weak) and he’s shaking all over too weak, too weak. Too weak and too pretty, light them up. To think that Nott had asked that of him. And the way that the sun. Over the ocean, Nott’s husband and son in the ocean, _I was hoping and praying that someday you would be strong enough. to kill me. _The light reflecting off the ocean and into his eyes until they watered and he was blind, could be anywhere. _I was hoping someday that you would be strong enough, Bren. But I see that you have not quite reached your full potential. Perhaps if we to kill me with fire._

_to kill me with fire. _

“I think you could do it,” Nott says. Her eyes on his are yellow and soft, like buttercups – one of his first favorite things about her, really, the soft wavering of her eyes – sharp edges always on Nott, sharp around the edges (distinction: not Veth) (Veth’s sharpness is inside, file that away, sharpness is Nott and Not Veth) but too soft and unbearable and soft and unbearable and soft and she digs her fingers into the sand, nervous. I think you could do it, BrenCaleb. NotCaleb. NottCaleb, but add a space between them.

I think you could do it. Frumpkin climbing into Nott’s lap and purring, desperately, and Nott’s eyes wet with water but not the wrong kind of water she’s shaking nervous. The depths of her eyes still entirely too soft _alright_ she says. _alright Caleb you c_and he clicks his fingers and she’s screaming. Screaming and screaming and screaming the smell. Of it and the way it triggers that part of the brain that wants meat, the watering of the mouth. Nobody ever told Bren that his mouth would water but it. Did. His parents burning his mouth watering he was so hungry. He couldn’t eat because he wasn’t hungry and could never be hungry again but also he was hungry, starving. The urge in him. The nasty burning in him that climbs into his fingers: magic. Magic. Not magic. He doesn’t really know anymore. Dancing Lights gone. No magic, the magic, the pulsing of the magic screaming burn.

He stumbles down the beach to the ocean, and keeps walking. He is so hot even though it is cold – it isn’t really cold – the night air of Nicodranas, bearable. Tropical. Jester growing up here soft and killable easy to kill able killable the waves. And also the waves. And also, the waves. The silence of the beach at night the waves. In. Out. In.

And—

—he walks in—

—to the ocean.

The water clawing at Caleb’s legs is cold and furious. It is also blessedly impartial; it comes in and goes out at a rate he can calculate, which varies only slightly to account for his weight and lack of motion. He wades in deeper. Up to his hips. The spell components in his pockets going wet and falling apart, maybe, he’ll check them later – when they have a moment – he’ll line them all up and his brain might feel like this: empty.

He lets his hands fall down to his sides. The water sighs wearily and bursts against his fingertips and his calloused palms.

It has always been easy to love Nott. Uncomplicated, maybe – not because their relationship is not complicated, but because the love is so true and earnest and full that it overwhelms everything else. It has been easy to love Nott in a way that it hasn’t been easy to love anything or anyone for a long, long time.

The others after, maybe. One by one finding the little cracks in his broken-down heart and creeping in to make their beds. But. Nott first. Three whole chambers of his heart for Nott and the impossible hopeful moons of her eyes.

“The fact of the matter is I owe you everything,” he tells her. He looks at her and then away, towards the horizon. His palms itch and prickle – he could do it here, to make her into something. To make her into something bright as the. Caleb stupid you did not do it here, you did not do it here you are corrupting the memory he opens his eyes. The black of the sky, the black of the water. He’s starting to shake from the cold; his trousers and boots and skin are soaked and burning from the sheer impossible salt-cold of the water. He feels so endlessly heavy. Nott asked him to kill her – not now, but someday. Maybe even someday soon. If he works hard enough for it. If he wants it enough.

He closes his eyes again and lets himself fall face-forward into the sea.

The cold slaps him and tumbles him over and over, and Caleb surfaces gasping and choking and almost spitting up bile. The miraculous horrible urge of the body to keep surviving, despite everything. No matter what it has to do, it refuses to stay at the bottom of the sea.

He doesn’t want to kill her.

He will, when she asks him to.

Which of these truths is unforgivable? Either neither both? He doesn’t know. When the time comes he will do it, because that is what Bren had always clawed and fought to accomplish: reliability, noun, the quality of being trustworthy or performing as consistently well as a stopwatch. Tick tock tick.

It’s 3:14 in the morning and his eyes itch and burn with salt. Caleb sucks in a breath and curls into a ball under the water, eyes closed, churned around by the cold burn of it. The cold non-burn of it. He summons a Fire Bolt into his hand and it hisses angrily at the sea, pulsing against the black of his eyelids. He holds himself down there so long that the magic sputters out and sparks start popping behind the backs of his eyelids. The thing is that he is not allowed to die. Not for himself, obviously – obviously he is worth nothing – but for Nott. If he died, Nott would never be able to go home. To her real family and to her loves. His death would trap her just as surely as her own death would, so he can never die.

At the last possible second Caleb surfaces, gasps for more breath and swims in a stupid weak doggy-paddle back to the shore. He lets himself tumble back onto the sand. 3:17 in the morning; tomorrow he will draw them all the exact and perfect circle that will send them back to Xhorhas. He will. Someday he will kill Nott; he already knows the exact way that she will scream.

Caleb stands up, one leg at a time. He trudges through the sand back to the shore. Snap: Dancing Lights. In their sallow glow he makes his waterlogged and fireless way back home.

**Author's Note:**

> _I mean, I love you. But back then, anyway, and even now, there's a part of me that is hoping that you'll become powerful enough to do me a great service, and I haven't really been explicit with you about that, but I've seen you do amazing things, and change things into other things. I've also seen you be ruthless when you need to be. You know how I became this way. They drowned me in water and turned me into another body. I was hoping, praying that some day, when you're able to learn the spell, find the book, whatever it is, that you would be strong enough to kill me with fire, and change my body like they did. I think you could do it. You're very powerful._
> 
> _Well, the fact of the matter is I owe you everything, and I would not be here. I would be dead in a field outside of Alfield without you. And many times over. Ja. Anything is possible._
> 
> _Well, but is it, though? I kind of need to know. I want to say something to my child, but I don't want to lie. If I tell him that I will be back, I need to know that it is truly possible. Is that something that you can do for me?_
> 
> _Not now, but I am on the edges of such things._
> 
> _You could kill me and bring me back?_
> 
> _You want to be you._
> 
> _Yes._
> 
> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


End file.
